U.S. Policies Hand South America Over to Narcoterrorists
by Gretchen Small
July 3 (EIRNS)Events in South America expose the Bush Administration's supposed global war against anti-terrorism, to be a monstrous combination of fraud and incompetence.
Narcoterrorists have just won significant victories in Peru and Bolivia, endangering the very existence of these two countries where only two years ago, the drug trade and its paramilitary armies were on the run. Responsibility for this disaster lies with the United States, which betrayed both countries in their fight.
If U.S. policies are not changed, narcoterrorists could seize control of the entire Andean region of South America, soon. Narcoterrorists have so much control in Colombia already, that on June 23 the biggest narcoterrorist force, the FARC, announced that it will "not allow a single representative of the state to function in any municipality," and ordered that all mayors, city councilmen, judges, and prosecutors quit their posts, or be "captured or executed." - Jailing the Best -
In Peru, it is the government of President Alejandro Toledo itself which is reviving the narcoterrorists. Toledo admits he took a million dollars from drug legalization financier George Soros for his election, after Madeleine Albright's State Department in September 2000 overthrew the Fujimori government which had successfully restored peace in Peru, by defeating the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) and MRTA narcoterrorists in the 1990s.
Peruvian anti-terrorist forces report that at least 647 Sendero and MRTA terrorists were freed from jail in 2001 by Toledo's government, and those still imprisoned have been permitted to establish communications with members on the outside. Sendero, in particular, is rebuilding.
Now, the government is jailing the military who fought the terrorists. In a clear act of revenge, arrest warrants were issued May 13 for 11 members of the Armed Forces who led the rescue operation in 1997 to free 72 hostages held by the MRTA for over five months at the residence of the Japanese Ambassador to Peru. The MRTA was threatening to kill its hostages, unless the Fujimori government negotiated a power-sharing deal.
Instead, the Fujimori government secretly planned a daring rescue. Named "Chavin de Huantar," on April 22, 1997, a commando force of more than 100 men, the majority of them colonels and generals of the Peruvian Army and Navy, succeeded in freeing all but one of the hostages unharmed. Two officers gave their lives in the rescue; Col. Juan Valer died while shielding then-Foreign Minister Francisco Tudela, when a terrorist shot him at him at point-blank range.
The 1997 Lima operation is considered one of the most successful anti-terrorist actions in recent military history worldwide. But Toledo's prosecutors charge that the rescue was an act of premediated murder, because the terrorists were killed in order to save the lives of the hostages! General Augusto Patino, who led the rescue, has been jailed at the Anti-Terrorism Unit of the National Police, as if he were a terrorist.
Yet, top Bush Administration officials, including President Bush himself, still hold up the Toledo government as a "model" of democracy. And not one word has been heard from Washington, as the best anti-terrorist fighters in the hemisphere are jailed. - A FARC in Bolivia? -
In Peru's neighbor, Bolivia, no significant narcoterrorist force had been establisheduntil now.
In 1998, the Banzer government launched Operation Dignity, a plan to drive the drug trade out within five years. The government warned that halfway measures would not work, and there could be "fatal consequences for Bolivia of the 21st century" if they failed. To work, the government said it had to bring economic development to the areas where coca growing was to be wiped out: energy, water, sanitation, health care, education, roads, irrigation systems, and technical aid for agro-industry were needed.
Bolivia succeeded in wiping out coca cultivation. U.S. officials praised them to the skies, but provided no economic assistance and demanded "free trade reforms." Thousands of families were thrown into starvation, when nothing replaced the coca trade which had been shut down.
It comes as no surprise, then, that in the Presidential elections on June 30, in which no major candidate won even 25% of the vote, the most significant political victory was that of Evo Morales, leader of the coca-growers. Morales, an ally of Colombia's murderous FARC, won 15-17% of the vote, thus making his MAS Party the third political force in the country. Some already point to Morales as a potential "kingmaker" on whom any government will depend, for its ability to govern.
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